Finally, I have corrected the correlations between voter turnout and percentage
of Italian speakers at the municipal level in the 2013 and 2018 provincial
elections. These were originally reported as -0.76 and -0.60, respectively,
but they were actually stronger, standing at -0.84 and -0.70, respectively;
the lower figures were due to the fact that five of South Tyrol's 116
municipalities had not been included in the original analysis. For comparison
purposes, the correlation between voter turnout at the municipal level and
percentage of Italian speakers in the 2008 Landtag election stood at -0.71
- almost identical to the corresponding figure for 2018.

Update: South Tyrol provincial election results since 1993 are now
available on this website. This piece, originally posted on January 28, 2019,
has been updated and corrected, as detailed on
South Tyrol
Landtag election results.

The province of Bolzano - South Tyrol, which held a provincial election last
October 21, stands out from the rest of Italy in many ways. Besides being
the country's northernmost province as well as its wealthiest one, South
Tyrol is the only Italian province in which a majority of the population
speaks the German language. Nevertheless, a substantial minority speaks Italian,
and both languages enjoy official status along with Ladin, a Romance language
related to Italian but distinct from it. In addition, the province houses
a rapidly growing foreign population, which nowadays vastly outnumbers
Ladin-speaking South Tyroleans.

Not surprisingly, the language divide has played a crucial role in South
Tyrolean party politics, and the province has developed a multi-party system
in which Italy's nationwide political forces - primarily supported by Italian
speakers - compete with parties backed by German (and Ladin) speakers, most
notably among them the South Tyrol People's Party (SVP), which has been the
largest party in the province since 1948. In fact, SVP was a key actor in
the establishment of devolved government at the provincial level in 1972;
the region of Trentino-Alto Adige, formed by the provinces of Bolzano and
Trento (Trent), had been granted devolution in 1948, but German-speaking
South Tyroleans were not satisfied with this arrangement, primarily because
they were (and remain) vastly outnumbered by Italian speakers at the regional
level.

However, support for SVP has been gradually but steadily declining in recent
years, due to the emergence of other parties within the German-language
community, some of which advocate transforming South Tyrol into an independent
country, or having the province reincorporated into Austria; the present-day
region of Trentino-Alto Adige was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until
1919. Meanwhile, the environmentalist Greens have developed a not insubstantial
following among members of all three linguistic groups. As a result, in 2013
SVP lost the overall majority it had held in South Tyrol's provincial council
since 1948.

Although South Tyrol has often been cited as an example of peaceful coexistence
between different ethno-linguistic groups, one notable political trend among
Italian speakers - particularly in the provincial capital of Bolzano/Bozen,
where they constitute a large majority of the population - was the unusually
strong showing of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI-DN) and its
ostensibly post-fascist successor, the National Alliance (AN) between 1985
and 2008. MSI-DN, which remained a small yet not insignificant force in the
rest of Italy, turned Bolzano - South Tyrol's largest city - into a party
stronghold by exploiting ethnic resentment against the German-speaking population
and its allegedly privileged position on account of the system of ethnic
proportionality, which provides for the allocation of public goods (such
as government jobs and welfare benefits) among the province's linguistic
groups in proportion to their numerical strength. However, support for the
hard right receded in the years following the National Alliance's participation
in and subsequent merger with Silvio Berlusconi's right-of-center People
of Freedom (PdL), and in the 2013 provincial election SVP narrowly topped
the poll in Bolzano, five votes ahead of the Democratic Party (PD-DP), Italy's
main center-left party.

That said, the last five years have brought about dramatic changes in Italy's
party system. The emergence of the populist but ideologically ambiguous Five
Star Movement (M5S) upset the dominance of the broad center-right and center-left
cartels which had alternated in power since 1994, paving the way for a three-way
race in 2013, in which the center-left coalition won a large majority in
the Chamber of Deputies on a narrow popular vote lead, but fell short of
a Senate majority. However, that state of affairs, as well as the subsequent,
short-lived dominance of PD under the leadership of Matteo Renzi, turned
out to be halfway houses. Much like France's Charles de Gaulle in 1969, Renzi
bet his political future on an ill-advised constitutional reform, and just
as in France nearly a half-century earlier, the gamble backfired spectacularly
when voters rejected the proposal in a 2016 referendum. As a result, Renzi
had no choice but to resign as head of government, dealing a heavy blow to
the center-left in general and PD in particular.

By the time a general election was held in March 2018 under a new electoral
system, the alliance formed by the center-left parties - still struggling
to recover from the aftermath of the 2016 referendum - finished third, well
behind the center-right coalition and M5S, which became Italy's largest single
party. However, the center-right coalition fell short of an overall parliamentary
majority in both houses of Parliament, and eventually a coalition government
was formed by M5S and the Northern League, which had become the largest party
within the center-right alliance, displacing Berlusconi's Forza Italia.

Meanwhile, South Tyrol remained one of the few areas in Italy where the
center-left coalition prevailed, by virtue of an alliance with SVP. The latter,
while not a leftist party by any stretch of the imagination, has usually
aligned itself with Italy's center-left alliances. This is due in no small
measure to the historically strained relationship between South Tyrol's
German-speaking population and the Italian right, going all the way back
to the Fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini: it is no exaggeration to
say that to this day, some people in Italy show little if any contrition
about the Fascist regime's attempt to forcibly Italianize South Tyrol, which
entailed among other things banning the use of the German language in the
public sphere, and the large-scale resettlement of Italians from other parts
of the country, in order to dilute the numerical superiority of German speakers
in the province.

Since the March 2018 general election, opinion polls in Italy have indicated
that support for the right-wing Northern League has soared to the point it
might become the largest single party should a general election be held in
the immediate future. The League's rising electoral fortunes have been largely
confirmed by recent regional, provincial and local elections, among them
the provincial vote in South Tyrol last October. However, due to the province's
unique political environment, the extent of this turn of events is not fully
evident from the overall results.

As in previous elections, the official
South Tyrol 2018
provincial election website provides aggregated results for the eight
municipalities with a majority of Ladin speakers. However, I took that one
step further, and aggregated the results for the five municipalities where
according to the 2011 census a majority of the population speaks Italian,
and for the 103 municipalities where German speakers are in the majority.
The aggregated results for the three groups and for the entire province of
South Tyrol (the latter including postal ballots), were as follows:

List

Italian-
speaking
Municipalities

German-
speaking
Municipalities

Ladin-
speaking
Municipalities

Total

Votes

%

Votes

%

Votes

%

Votes

%

SVP Südtiroler Volkspartei

10,416

17.53

97,235

47.70

6,751

60.60

119,109

41.89

Team Köllensperger

4,178

7.03

36,804

18.06

1,410

12.66

43,315

15.23

Lega

17,318

29.15

12,687

6.22

1,182

10.61

31,515

11.08

Verdi - Grüne - Verc

5,665

9.54

11,001

5.40

409

3.67

19,392

6.82

Die Freiheitlichen

805

1.36

16,043

7.87

558

5.01

17,620

6.20

Süd-Tiroler Freiheit

575

0.97

15,572

7.64

261

2.34

16,927

5.95

PD Partito Democratico - Demokratische Partei

6,765

11.39

3,620

1.78

63

0.57

10,808

3.80

Movimento 5 Stelle

3,837

6.46

2,480

1.22

193

1.73

6,670

2.35

L'Alto Adige nel cuore Fratelli d'Italia Uniti

3,317

5.58

1,461

0.72

26

0.23

4,882

1.72

BürgerUnion für Südtirol

215

0.36

3,239

1.59

153

1.37

3,665

1.29

Noi per l'Alto Adige - Für Südtirol

1,963

3.30

1,369

0.67

47

0.42

3,428

1.21

Forza Italia

1,704

2.87

1,004

0.49

44

0.39

2,826

0.99

CasaPound Italia

1,937

3.26

475

0.23

19

0.17

2,451

0.86

Vereinte Linke Sinistra Unita

714

1.20

848

0.42

25

0.22

1,753

0.62

Now, it should be noted that these aggregations have the following constraints:

While the Ladin valleys are fairly homogeneous in terms of language, the
Italian- and German-speaking municipalities have both significant linguistic
minorities, particularly in the case of the former. According to the 1991
census language figures for South Tyrolean municipalities - the last census
for which South Tyrol's Provincial
Statistics Institute has municipality-level absolute language figures
available online (for 2001 and 2011 language statistics at that level are
available as percentages only) - the distribution of languages stood as follows:

Language

Italian-
speaking
Municipalities

German-
speaking
Municipalities

Ladin-
speaking
Municipalities

Valid
Declarations

Abs.

%

Abs.

%

Abs.

%

Abs.

%

Italian

80,300

71.66

36,093

12.28

521

3.09

116,914

27.65

German

30,920

27.59

255,691

86.99

892

5.28

287,503

67.99

Ladin

834

0.74

2,133

0.73

15,467

91.63

18,434

4.36

Note that the language distribution of South Tyrol's non-foreign population
hasn't changed significantly since 1991. According to the 2011 census, the
province had 118,120 Italian speakers (26.06%); 314,604 German speakers (69.41%);
and 20,548 Ladin speakers (4.53%), for a total of 453,272 valid language
declarations. Moreover, available 2011 figures for the Ladin valleys indicate
the area remained 90.85% Ladin-speaking at that point in time. It should
also be noted that the cited language figures include a small percentage
of aggregation declarations made by South Tyroleans who don't consider themselves
as belonging to any of the three official linguistic groups, but who are
nonetheless required by law to specify the group to which they wish to be
aggregated.

In 2011, the percentage of German speakers in the group of German-speaking
municipalities ranged from 50.47% in Merano/Meran - South Tyrol's second
largest city, where 49.06% of the population spoke Italian - to 100% in
Martello/Martell, the only municipality in the province where the entire
population spoke a single language; leaving Meran out of this category, the
remaining municipalities were 91.28% German-speaking and 7.97% Italian-speaking
in 1991.

All the same, the figures show a dramatic contrast between the Italian-speaking
municipalities on the one hand, and those with German- and Ladin-speaking
majorities on the other one. In the former, the League topped the poll with
nearly twice as many votes as SVP, and over thrice as many as PD. In fact,
the results were broadly similar to those of the provincial election in
neighboring Trento province, which also went to the polls last October 21;
although recognized linguistic minorities in the latter constitute just four
percent of the population, the province has a significant autonomist party,
namely PATT, which is also a frequent ally of SVP at the regional level.

Meanwhile, in the German- and Ladin-speaking municipalities SVP remained
by far the largest party, although the new Team Köllensperger (TK) list
headed by Paul Köllensperger, a former M5S member, had a strong showing
on its electoral debut and arrived second both in those areas and in the
entire province. The League emerged as the largest Italian party in both
the German and Ladin areas, albeit reduced to single digits and placing a
distant fifth in the German-speaking municipalities. That said, no Italian
list had managed to poll as much as five percent of the vote on that part
of South Tyrol in the provincial elections held between 1998 and 2013. Just
as important, the League finished third in the Ladin municipalities with
10.60% - a noteworthy outcome considering that Italian speakers constitute
just 4.70% of the population in the Ladin valleys. The remaining Italian
lists fared poorly on both German- and Ladin-speaking areas, but the Greens
continued to draw support from all three linguistic groups, although their
share of the vote was noticeably higher in the Italian-speaking municipalities.

One particularly divisive issue in the recently held provincial election
was a proposal by Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) - currently
the junior partner in that country's right-wing coalition government - to
grant Austrian passports to German- and Ladin-speaking South Tyroleans, but
not to Italian speakers. The proposal has met strong opposition from the
Italian government, but was embraced by South Tyrol's separatist parties.
However, these parties - particularly Die Freiheitlichen (whose name
is sometimes translated to English as "The Libertarians") - incurred in
substantial losses. At the municipal level, these losses show a relatively
strong inverse correlation (-0.64) with the results obtained by TK, particularly
in the 103 German-speaking municipalities (-0.74).

The following table shows vote and percentage gains or losses for selected
lists with respect to the 2013 provincial election (with postal ballots taken
into account for the provincial totals):

List

Italian-
speaking
Municipalities

German-
speaking
Municipalities

Ladin-
speaking
Municipalities

Total

Votes

%

Votes

%

Votes

%

Votes

%

SVP Südtiroler Volkspartei

-3,097

-6.37

-9,752

-2.77

-39

+0.84

-12,146

-3.85

Team Köllensperger

+4,178

+7.03

+36,804

+18.06

+1,410

+12.66

+43,315

+15.23

Lega

+12,684

+20.95

+10,333

+5.11

+1,091

+9.81

+24,395

+8.60

Verdi - Grüne - Verc

-403

-1.20

-5,668

-2.47

-258

-2.20

-5,678

-1.92

Die Freiheitlichen

-1,852

-3.35

-30,682

-14.17

-1,205

-10.51

-33,890

-11.75

Süd-Tiroler Freiheit

-578

-1.07

-3,167

-1.20

-149

-1.27

-3,816

-1.27

PD Partito Democratico - Demokratische Partei

-5,639

-10.56

-2,744

-1.23

-79

-0.68

-8,402

-2.89

Movimento 5 Stelle

-320

-0.90

-136

-0.02

-41

-0.33

-430

-0.13

L'Alto Adige nel cuore Fratelli d'Italia Uniti

-862

-1.81

-328

-0.13

-28

-0.24

-1,179

-0.39

BürgerUnion für Südtirol

-33

-0.08

-1,337

-0.57

-993

-8.71

-2,400

-0.82

Interestingly enough, in percentage terms SVP incurred a greater loss in
the Italian-speaking municipalities, even though the party is far weaker
in them than anywhere else in the province. In fact, it is the exact opposite
of the pattern observed between the 2008 and 2013 provincial elections, in
which the party's losses came primarily from the German-speaking municipalities.
Just as important, SVP no longer commands an absolute majority in that part
of the province, where as recently as 1998 its share of the vote stood at
70.18%; this is true as well even when leaving out bilingual Merano/Meran
(in which case SVP's share of the vote in the remaining German-speaking
municipalities increases to 49.34%, down from 73.94% in 1998). Meanwhile,
the League's vote total had a larger growth rate in the German-speaking areas,
even though its vote percentage increase was by far bigger in the
Italian-speaking municipalities.

While voting patterns in South Tyrol largely follow the province's linguistic
distribution, the relationship is not strictly one-to-one. There have been
instances in which a majority or nearly a majority of voters on some
Italian-speaking municipalities have supported ethnic German lists in provincial
elections, while in national elections to the Italian Chamber of Deputies,
the combined share of the vote for Italian party lists in the German-speaking
municipalities has usually exceeded the reported proportion of Italian speakers
in that part of the province by a significant margin. In fact, in some
German-speaking municipalities with a substantial Italian-speaking minority,
Italian parties have often outpolled ethnic German parties in Chamber elections.

The described electoral behavior could be explained by a number of factors,
such as population shifts in the years since the 2011 census; linguistic
distribution disparities between the overall and voting-age populations;
individuals who indicate a linguistic group affiliation different from their
first language (or languages); voters supporting a party outside their linguistic
group (or an inter-ethnic list such as the Greens); and voter turnout disparities
between linguistic groups. The first three factors are beyond the scope of
this posting, but official election statistics confirm the importance of
the remaining two.

From 1948 to 1998, voter turnout in provincial as well as national elections
in South Tyrol stood at exceptionally high levels, usually above ninety percent.
A slight decline in turnout became evident by the end of the century, but
as late as 1998 turnout differences between South Tyrol's eight districts
remained small, standing at just over five percent. Even so, in the provincial
election held that year voter turnout in the district of Bolzano - coextensive
with the provincial capital - fell at a noticeably higher rate than in the
rest of the province, a trend which rapidly accelerated in subsequent provincial
elections. By 2013 the turnout gap between districts exceeded twenty percent,
and turnout in the Italian-speaking municipalities was almost sixteen points
below the corresponding figure for German-speaking municipalities. Meanwhile,
voter turnout rates for Chamber of Deputies elections held during that period
showed very little variation between Italian- and German-speaking municipalities,
with differences of less than one percent between 2006 and 2013.

However, the 2018 legislative and provincial elections were both characterized
by a drastic departure from previously observed patterns. In the Chamber
of Deputies vote last March, voter turnout in South Tyrol fell sharply with
respect to the preceding 2013 election, but the drop was particularly acute
in the German- and Ladin-speaking municipalities; as a result, voter turnout
in Italian-speaking municipalities was significantly higher than in
German-speaking municipalities; the latter also registered a large increase
in the number of invalid ballots. This unusual turn of events appeared to
be due to the non-participation of South Tyrol's separatist parties. But
in the October provincial election turnout rose slightly in the Italian-speaking
municipalities, relative to the 2013 provincial vote, while it fell significantly
in German- and Ladin-speaking municipalities. As a result, the turnout gap
between districts shrunk to just over fifteen percent, while the difference
in turnout between Italian- and German-speaking municipalities came down
to less than twelve percent. All the same, voter turnout in South Tyrol has
now declined nearly twenty points over the course of four decades, from a
record high of 93.21% in 1978 to 73.87% this year (excluding postal ballots).
For the Landtag (Provincial Council) and Chamber of Deputies elections of
2008 to 2018, voter turnout in South Tyrol and the three municipality groups
stood as follows:

Event

Italian-
speaking
Municipalities

German-
speaking
Municipalities

Ladin-
speaking
Municipalities

Total

Voters

%

Voters

%

Voters

%

Voters

%

Landtag 2008

70,208

73.17

231,107

82.31

12,628

82.84

313,943

80.09

Landtag 2013

59,201

65.02

218,864

81.93

11,779

79.33

289,844

77.70

Landtag 2018

60,669

65.29

210,707

76.68

11,502

75.41

282,878

73.87

Chamber 2008

78,522

84.06

221,211

84.73

12,441

85.40

312,174

84.59

Chamber 2013

76,086

81.37

221,775

82.27

12,503

83.15

310,364

82.08

Chamber 2018

71,665

75.13

185,246

66.75

11,213

72.51

268,124

69.04

In the 2013 provincial election there was a fairly high inverse correlation
(-0.84) between voter turnout and percentage of Italian speakers at the municipal
level. However, by 2018 the correlation had dropped to -0.70, and there was
a moderate correlation (0.58) between change in voter turnout and
percentage of Italian speakers. At the municipal level, eighteen of the top
twenty voter turnout rate decreases (all above seven percent) took place
in municipalities which were at least 95% German-speaking, while at the district
level, Val Venosta/Vinschgau (97.29% German-speaking) had the largest drop
(-7.10%) in turnout. Meanwhile, the turnout rate in Bolzano remained unchanged
to two decimal places. These figures suggest that while turnout increased
among Italian speakers, it went down among German speakers, quite likely
outpacing the rising numbers among the former. As a result, in the
Italian-speaking municipalities the increased turnout among Italian speakers
was largely but not completely offset by the lower turnout among German speakers,
resulting in a minimal overall increase. However, in the German-speaking
municipalities the turnout increase among the proportionally much smaller
Italian-speaking minority barely dented the falling turnout among German
speakers. In terms of Landtag election results, the shifting turnout trends
may explain why ethnic German parties outpolled Italian lists in the three
smaller Italian-speaking municipalities in 2013, but not in 2018.

Voter turnout also fell noticeably - by an average of more than six percentage
points - in all but one of the South Tyrolean municipalities bordering Austria
(all of them overwhelmingly German-speaking). The one notable exception to
this trend was Brennero/Brenner, named after the Brenner Pass, an Alpine
mountain pass and a major transportation link with Austria; SVP substantially
increased its share of the vote in the municipality on a turnout rate slightly
larger than in 2013.

While the Austrian passports controversy may have played a role in the latest
decline in voter turnout, the relationship between both developments is not
quite clear. To be certain, the percentage decline of Die
Freiheitlichen, when calculated on the basis of the entire electorate
(that is, including non-voters and invalid votes), shows a mild correlation
(0.42) with the decrease in turnout, but the correlation is strongest (0.84)
in the eight municipalities where at least one-third of the population is
Italian-speaking.

Although the results polled by the League in 2018 broadly resemble those
obtained in 1998 and 2003 by the National Alliance - the last significant
Italian hard-right party in South Tyrol until the League's recent breakthrough
- the distribution of votes in the three linguistic-based municipality groups,
presented below, show a number of differences.

List

Italian-
speaking
Municipalities

German-
speaking
Municipalities

Ladin-
speaking
Municipalities

Total

Votes

%

Votes

%

Votes

%

Votes

%

AN (1998)

19,798

25.28

9,386

4.40

108

0.90

29,292

9.65

AN (2003)

17,980

25.09

7,320

3.38

82

0.67

25,382

8.44

Lega (2018)

17,318

29.15

12,687

6.22

1,182

10.61

31,515

11.08

As previously noted, the League's share of the vote in the Ladin Valleys
stood substantially above the percentage of Italian speakers in the area,
which suggests that a number of Ladin-speaking voters backed the party as
well. This appears to have been the case as well in the municipality of
Castelrotto/Kastelruth, which is predominantly German-speaking but also has
a significant (15.37%) Ladin minority. In fact, the League vote in that
municipality is concentrated on its sixth polling section, which in past
provincial elections has registered substantially above-average support for
Ladin lists. However, support for the National Alliance in South Tyrol's
predominantly Ladin-speaking areas was negligible in 1998 and 2003.

Meanwhile, the League's vote in the predominantly German-speaking areas of
the province stood slightly above the figures achieved by AN in 1998 and
2003, but the League's share of the vote also exceeded the percentage of
Italian speakers in forty-one German-speaking municipalities without a
significant Ladin-speaking population. In these municipalities - 1.79%
Italian-speaking in 1991 - AN nosedived to just 0.42% and 0.36% in 1998 and
2003, compared to 2.88% secured by the League in 2018. At the district level,
the same trend is particularly evident in Val Venosta/Vinschgau, where the
League won 2.62% of the vote in 2018, even though only 2.63% of its population
was Italian-speaking in 2011 (down from 3.06% in 2001 and 3.41% in 1991).
By comparison, AN polled just 0.86% of the district vote in 1998, and 0.67%
in 2003. Thus, it would appear that a few German-speaking voters - or at
least voters who identify as belonging to the German-speaking group - also
backed the League. In fact, in the municipality of Martello/Martell, whose
entire population was German-speaking in 2011, the League won 2.14% of the
vote. However, the League represents a different brand of hard-right politics,
inasmuch as in the recent past it had been a separatist party advocating
the independence of northern Italy from the rest of the country, which put
it at odds with the National Alliance. Moreover, in the 2014 European Parliament
election the League ran in coalition with Die Freiheitlichen.

As a result of the 2018 provincial election, the distribution of seats in
the South Tyrolean Landtag, allocated on a provincial basis by the largest
remainder method of proportional representation, stood as follows:

List

Seats

SVP Südtiroler Volkspartei

15

Team Köllensperger

6

Lega

4

Verdi - Grüne - Verc

3

Die Freiheitlichen

2

Süd-Tiroler Freiheit

2

PD Partito Democratico - Demokratische Partei

1

Movimento 5 Stelle

1

L'Alto Adige nel cuore Fratelli d'Italia Uniti

1

Compared to the 2013 provincial election, SVP lost two seats while PD-DP
lost one, and the two parties no longer commanded a Landtag majority. Since
the government of South Tyrol must reflect the province's ethno-linguistic
composition, SVP had only two choices: either form a coalition cabinet with
the League, or include the Greens in the existing coalition with the Democrats.
In the end, SVP leaders concluded the former was the least problematic of
the two options, and opened negotiations with the League in the weeks following
the election, which concluded in the formation of the province's first-ever
SVP-League government on January 25, 2019.

However, the lengthy negotiations between SVP and the League were nearly
derailed last December by the Italian government's constitutional reform
proposal to decrease by one-third the size of both houses of the Italian
Parliament. The original proposal called for the number of Senate single-member
seats in South Tyrol to be reduced from three to two, but this ran counter
to a 1991 law which fixed at three the number of such seats for each of
Trentino-Alto Adige's two provinces. Because said law was part of a package
of measures favorable to the population of Alto Adige, which led to the
settlement of the South Tyrol issue with Austria in 1992, the proposed
constitutional reform threatened to re-open a very sensitive issue, not least
because under the existing arrangement, two of South Tyrol's three Senate
seats are overwhelmingly German-speaking, while one has an Italian-speaking
majority, which approximates the province's linguistic makeup. In the end,
a compromise was reached whereby autonomous provinces would be guaranteed
a minimum of three single-member seats, thus restoring compliance with the
existing provisions. Even so, the controversy underscored the fragility of
the coalition agreement between SVP and the League. Time will tell if this
arrangement will prove to be stable or long-lasting.

As I previously noted on
The
2018 Ranked Choice Voting Election in Maine's Congressional District No.
2 over at Fruits and
Votes, the cast vote record data published by Maine's Secretary of State
indicates 140,325 of 289,624 voters casting a valid first preference in the
election gave valid rankings to at least two different candidates. However,
that data also allows a tally of the second preferences in these ballots,
cross-tabulated by first preference in the table below.

Candidate
Names

First Preference

Second
Preference
Total

Bond

Golden

Hoar

Poliquin

Bond, Tiffany L.

-

53,118

2,621

15,211

70,950

DEM Golden, Jared F.

4,835

-

1,203

9,315

15,353

Hoar, William R.S.

5,639

18,344

-

19,429

43,412

REP Poliquin, Bruce

1,632

8,089

889

-

10,610

Total

12,106

79,551

4,713

43,955

140,325

Interestingly enough, one or other of the two independent candidates emerged
as the second choice of all voters who indicated a valid second preference,
irrespective of their first preference choice. A plurality of Poliquin and
Bond first preference voters chose Hoar, while a majority of voters selecting
Golden or Hoar as their first preference went for Bond, who obtained the
largest overall second preference total. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized
that the second preferences of Poliquin and Golden voters had no bearing
on the election outcome, which was determined by the elimination of independent
candidates Bond and Hoar after the first preference count, and the addition
of their second preferences to the first preference votes cast for continuing
candidates Golden and Poliquin, including 6,615 of the 8,260 ballots with
first and second preferences for the two independents plus valid third preferences
for Golden or Poliquin.

An overwhelming majority of voters indicating valid preferences for at least
two different candidates - 136,895 out of 140,325, or 97.6% - cast valid
first and second rankings. Of the remaining 3,430 ballots, a total of 2,604
had valid first rankings, an undervote (that is, blank) second ranking, and
a valid third ranking for another candidate. Following Maine's RCV counting
rules, single skipped rankings were ignored, and the third ranking was counted
as the second preference; the same logic was applied to 259 ballots with
an undervote on the first ranking, but valid preferences for different candidates
in the second and third rankings (which were counted as first and second
preferences).